Help build my library's DVD/Video collection

Cafe Society
1

Some time ago I posted this thread.

Would love to hear from you with regards to English language films now - not necessarily mainstream blockbuster stuff or Hollywood classics - I think we’ve got those covered.

Any titles you’d like to recommend?

2

This isn’t a specific recommendation but check out the Criterion Collection of classic cinema DVD’s. These tend to be a bit more expensive but generally come with good extra features and transfers:
http://www.criterionco.com/asp/browse.asp

If you want specific recommendations from the above list in the category of English-language, non-Hollywood films you might want to try British classics like:
39 Steps
Third Man
Lady Vanishes
Great Expectations
Oliver Twist

3

I don’t know what kind of library you have, but anything about artists, or up and coming indies are always something I look for when I am teaching, including:

  1. Pollock
  2. Surviving Picasso
  3. Joseph Beuys interviews (very obscure)
  4. There was a PBS documentary on the Impressionists awhile back.
  5. Walking and Talking
  6. If Lucy Fell
  7. Fall
  8. Waking Ned Divine
4

Anything that’s received an Academy Award is also a safe bet–the double-disk set of Laurence of Arabia, for example.

5

I have to recommend a film I just saw today: A Man For all Seasons a historical picture about Sir Thomas More , an adviser to Henry VIII. A magnificent film, perhaps the best historical film I have ever seen, with a superb performance by Paul Scofield as More. The DVD doesn’t have too many special features but the transfer is good and IMO the film is a must-have for any film library.

6

For All Mankind a documentary of the Apollo missions, with the astronauts describing what it was like to go to the Moon. (Also has the best director’s commentary I’ve ever heard.)

They don’t come out until Sept. 12th but Koyaansiqatsi and Powisqatsi are must haves as well.

7

O.K., time for me to post my obligatory link to a list I compiled a couple of years ago of 200 great films:

http://www.dcfilmsociety.org/rv_wendell200.htm

8

Non-U.S. English-language films for a good collection:

  1. The 39 Steps (UK, 1935), directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll. Fast paced cross-country thriller with romantic comedy undertones.
  2. The Thief of Bagdad (UK-US, 1940). Technicolor Arabian Nights fantasy, still the best of its kind.
  3. Henry V (UK, 1944), starring and produced and directed by Laurence Olivier. Stirringly patriotic adaptation of Shakespeare’s play begins with a detailed recreation of a performance at the Globe Theatre, moves into a stylized imitation of 15th century paintings, and then into realistic location work for the battle scenes.
  4. Brief Encounter (UK, 1946), directed by David Lean from Noel Coward’s play, starring Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard. Poignant love story about two middle-aged married people who meet by chance at a train station.
  5. Black Narcissus (UK, 1947), directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, starring Deborah Kerr. Anglican nuns try to open a infirmiry in the Himalayas, find themselves struggling instead with the ever-present sensuality of their surroundings. Oscar-winning Technicolor photography.
  6. The Red Shoes (UK, 1948), directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. This backstage story set in the world of ballet is one of Martin Scorcese’s favorite movies, and he appears on the DVD edition.
  7. The Third Man (UK-US, 1949), directed by Carol Reed from a story by Graham Greene, starring Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Orson Welles, and Trevor Howard. Mystery and corruption in postwar Vienna.
  8. Kind Hearts and Coronets (UK, 1949), directed by Robert Hamer, starring Dennis Price and Alec Guinness. Classic black comedy about a social climber who murders his way to the top; Guinness plays all the members of a family he preys on.
  9. Lolita (UK, 1962), directed by Stanley Kubrick, written by Vladimir Nabakov from his novel. Ideally cast: James Mason as Humbert Humbert, Shelley Winters as Charlotte Haze, Peter Sellers as Clare Quilty, and Sue Lyon as the title nymphette.
  10. The Servant (UK, 1963), directed by Joseph Losey, starring Dirk Bogarde. Psychosexual politics, as a master-servant relationship becomes inverted.
  11. Goldfinger (UK, 1964). The best of the Sean Connery James Bond pictures. Everything you would want in a 007 movie, and Pussy Galore.
  12. The War Game (UK, 1965), directed by Peter Watkins. Pseudo-documentary about a nuclear attack on England. Commissioned by the BBC, it was deemed too controversial to show. Academy Award: Best Documentary Feature.
  13. Blowup (UK, 1966), directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, starring Vanessa Redgrave and David Hemmings. A mod fashion photographer believes he has witnessed a murder, but the victim, the crime, and the evidence prove ever more elusive.
  14. If… (UK, 1968), directed by Lindsay Anderson. Revolution at an English boarding school.
  15. Don’t Look Now (UK, 1973), directed by Nicholas Roeg, starring Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland. Psychological horror movie, set in a wintery Venice.
  16. Barry Lyndon (UK, 1975), directed by Stanley Kubrick from Thackeray’s novel, starring Ryan O’Neal. Gorgeous and stately account of a rogue’s progress in 18th century England.
  17. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (UK, 1975).
  18. The Road Warrior (Australia, 1982), directed by George Miller, starring Mel Gibson. Sequel to 1979’s Mad Max, but bigger and meaner.
  19. A Room With a View (UK, 1986), directed by James Ivory, from E. M. Forster’s novel, starring Helena Bonham Carter, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Julian Sands. The most light-hearted and romantic of the Merchant-Ivory literary adaptations; excellent use of locations in Florence and Tuscany.
  20. Trainspotting (UK, 1996), directed by Danny Boyle, starring Ewan McGregor.
9

No question “39 Steps” and “The Lady Vanishes”. A pity Hitchcock didn’t stay with his younger style.

For a Bond film, “From Russia with Love”, which was the last one Ian Fleming was alive to contribute to.

“The War Game” is a little dark. I heard Peter Watkins talk. He’s like a Doper going through a really gloomy spell.

Shakespeare: “Hamlet” with Olivier. “Much Ado about Nothing” with Emma Thompson.

If I had $1000 dollars for which I had no other use, I’d get a list of compiled “Top 100 British Movies”, and look them up on Amazon to see which have been brought to DVD. As it happens, I’m feeling so guilty about the money spent on DVDs I’ve started loaning them to friends and family.

Have you checked local libraries? Ours have started to build up sizable DVD collections, and they’re often “classical” titles.